Rumsfeld Departure Splits World’s most Murderous Pair
Chris Stevenson
November 13, 2006
(A brief history of the Gruesome Twosome).
Those of you who believed that President Bush was on the verge of relieving Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of their duties know very little about these two. The war-mongers I tagged the Gruesome Twosome are probably powerful enough to fire W, were it that they didn’t need him. Most of you don’t realize the Gruesome Twosome Administration has been in the White House for the better part of the last 35-40 years. The two go back to the Nixon era when Rumsfeld was Nixon’s counselor and Cheney his deputy. Cheney also assisted Rumsfeld when he was then-President Ford’s Secretary of Defense. After a Cabinet purge, Cheney named an unknown to head the CIA, W’s father George H.W. Bush. After a stint as House Minority Whip, he was appointed to Secretary of Defense by newly elected president George Sr.
This refusal to fire the two goes deeper than whether or not the administration will still give Halliburton no-bid contracts. It may take decades before we know just how much Cheney and Rumsfeld manipulated world events. When the president stated on 11/1 that both of them will stay on with his administration until it ends, many of us either forget or refuse to realize why they are in power in the first place. Cheney has always been on his own program. A man governed by his own paranoia and disregard for the masses. During Ford’s tenure he used the Cold War to increase defense spending even after the CIA told them about the Soviets’ waning economy and of course Nixon’s ending hostilities between the superpowers. Rumsfeld was along with Cheney on these meetings. Both are quite literally a mockery to any patch of dirt calling itself democratic. One is hard-line against freedom for common people at all, even the middle-class. The other espouses a form of torturing prisoners that is so vile, it's been called “homo-erotic.” It is the being taken to task for signing off on the military captivity abuses that is no-doubt the prime reason Rumsfeld has been trying to fly the coop for over a year. He finally made his move in early November.
In a letter dated 1/98 Cheney, Rummy, and an obscure right wing group consisting of Jeb Bush and Wolfowitz, urged then-president Clinton to invade Iraq. Writers Sydney Blumenthal (The Clinton Wars) and William Bunch (Philly.com) tracked the Project for the New American Century as making a case for Iraqi invasion back in ’97, almost 4 years before the 9/11 attacks, and 3 years before W took office.
The best way to understand Cheney is to read his policy paper; an extended piece of fascist work called The Defense Strategy for the 90’s. It was published in ’93 while Bush 41 was cleaning out his desk and rinsing his presidential coffee cup just before Clinton arrived, but actually it was first conceived in the 70’s and based on Cold War paranoia. At that time Cheney was finishing his term as Secretary of Defense, and reportedly he even used the services of ghostwriters such as Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz among others. Harpers Magazine sums it up like this: “The plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination… it says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but it must be absolutely powerful.” As I stated, this was first pitched as a Cold War policy, but has since taken on the face of a post-9/11 anti-terror manifesto. It wasn’t just the GOP losses due to war opposition that led to Rumsfeld’s leaving, it was prison abuse opposition.
Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion Email comments to him at pointblankdta@yahoo.com
Those of you who believed that President Bush was on the verge of relieving Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of their duties know very little about these two. The war-mongers I tagged the Gruesome Twosome are probably powerful enough to fire W, were it that they didn’t need him. Most of you don’t realize the Gruesome Twosome Administration has been in the White House for the better part of the last 35-40 years. The two go back to the Nixon era when Rumsfeld was Nixon’s counselor and Cheney his deputy. Cheney also assisted Rumsfeld when he was then-President Ford’s Secretary of Defense. After a Cabinet purge, Cheney named an unknown to head the CIA, W’s father George H.W. Bush. After a stint as House Minority Whip, he was appointed to Secretary of Defense by newly elected president George Sr.
This refusal to fire the two goes deeper than whether or not the administration will still give Halliburton no-bid contracts. It may take decades before we know just how much Cheney and Rumsfeld manipulated world events. When the president stated on 11/1 that both of them will stay on with his administration until it ends, many of us either forget or refuse to realize why they are in power in the first place. Cheney has always been on his own program. A man governed by his own paranoia and disregard for the masses. During Ford’s tenure he used the Cold War to increase defense spending even after the CIA told them about the Soviets’ waning economy and of course Nixon’s ending hostilities between the superpowers. Rumsfeld was along with Cheney on these meetings. Both are quite literally a mockery to any patch of dirt calling itself democratic. One is hard-line against freedom for common people at all, even the middle-class. The other espouses a form of torturing prisoners that is so vile, it's been called “homo-erotic.” It is the being taken to task for signing off on the military captivity abuses that is no-doubt the prime reason Rumsfeld has been trying to fly the coop for over a year. He finally made his move in early November.
In a letter dated 1/98 Cheney, Rummy, and an obscure right wing group consisting of Jeb Bush and Wolfowitz, urged then-president Clinton to invade Iraq. Writers Sydney Blumenthal (The Clinton Wars) and William Bunch (Philly.com) tracked the Project for the New American Century as making a case for Iraqi invasion back in ’97, almost 4 years before the 9/11 attacks, and 3 years before W took office.
The best way to understand Cheney is to read his policy paper; an extended piece of fascist work called The Defense Strategy for the 90’s. It was published in ’93 while Bush 41 was cleaning out his desk and rinsing his presidential coffee cup just before Clinton arrived, but actually it was first conceived in the 70’s and based on Cold War paranoia. At that time Cheney was finishing his term as Secretary of Defense, and reportedly he even used the services of ghostwriters such as Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz among others. Harpers Magazine sums it up like this: “The plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination… it says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but it must be absolutely powerful.” As I stated, this was first pitched as a Cold War policy, but has since taken on the face of a post-9/11 anti-terror manifesto. It wasn’t just the GOP losses due to war opposition that led to Rumsfeld’s leaving, it was prison abuse opposition.
Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion Email comments to him at pointblankdta@yahoo.com
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